The Sprout: Report critical of CWB closure found riddled with errors

Good morning and welcome to the Sprout, where your host — who’s headed back to Ottawa from Edmonton today — couldn’t help but roll her eyes this weekend when she saw Michael Bublé’s attempt at eating corn-on-the-cob.

Now, here is today’s agriculture news.

The Lead:

A new report that suggests Canadian shippers are being paid less for their grain than they were under the Canadian Wheat Board appears to be riddled with math errors.

Several sources, including a former Canadian Wheat Board director, told The Manitoba Co-operator University of Saskatchewan Ph.D. candidate Laura Larsen used an inaccurate comparison while calculating how much private trade had been paid in her report released last Wednesday by the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance (CWBA).

In Canada:

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has issued a recall for a frozen berry mix sold at Costco after three people were hospitalized with Hepatitis A. The recall is for 1.5kg bags of Nature’s Touch Organic Cherry Berry Blend with best-before dates up to and including March 15, 2018. CBC News has the story.

Also from CBC News: A Nova Scotia brewery hasn’t been able to sell its beer outside the province because of a trademark dispute with an Ontario brewer.

The Newfoundland government has scrapped a fund meant to help develop large scale agri-food projects. As The Manitoba Co-operator explains, the Agriculture and Agrifoods Development Fund was created in 2006 by then-premier Danny Williams “to support large-scale agriculture and agrifoods projects throughout our province” in either primary or secondary processing.

Internationally:

Food shortages worsened in Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture today as tens of thousands remained evacuated from their homes following powerful earthquakes that jolted southwestern Japan last week. Japan Today reports.

Vermont’s attorney general is demanding the federal court force the country’s big seed companies to turn over their internal research on genetically modified crops. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the request comes as Vermont’s GMO-labelling law is set to take effect in July.

The French government says it plans to stop importing cherries from countries that use the insecticide dimethoate after banning the chemical due to concerns over consumer health risks. Reuters has that story.